THERE IS no down time for the digital native. Meals are photographed and shared online before the first bite is taken. A lull in conversation or a pause at the traffic lights are opportunities to check texts and emails. At home, with one eye on the TV, the other scanning Facebook, Twitter and Google, life in the clickstream is frenetic.

But some experts are starting to worry that the digital revolution transforming the way we live is also making us ill. For the ''always on'' generation, this constant overload of information could be triggering mental health problems.

More worrying, they say, is emerging evidence that it may be causing structural changes in the brain.

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''I see kids clinically who spend the whole day engaged with electronic media and it's clearly a problem,'' said Professor George Patton from the Royal Children's Hospital's Centre for Adolescent Health. ''During those teenage years when the brain is in a very active phase of development and learning to process information about relationships and emotions, there's a concern that these kids are actually going to be wired differently in the future, given the malleability of brains at that age.

''They may grow accustomed to, and be more comfortable with, the kinds of relationships that happen in this electronic space.''

With the march of technology outpacing research into its impact, medical opinion is divided on whether it will irreparably rewire our brains to crave instant gratification and screen-based stimulation.

Many believe the benefits of the internet - the ability to connect with geographically distant loved ones, or promote rapid social and political engagement - are too significant to condemn technology.

However, some specialists say there is already clinical evidence that behaviours such as online multitasking or addiction to Facebook ''likes'' bear the hallmarks of medical conditions such as hyperactivity and obsessive compulsive disorder.

Larry Rosen, a Californian psychologist and one of the world's leading authorities on technology overuse, believes future generations will increasingly suffer from ''iDisorders'' - psychiatric conditions such as narcissistic personality disorder, mania and attention deficit disorder, sparked by excessive use of social media, smartphones and computers.

He says the consequences of living life through a screen are already being seen in heavy users, who have diminished attention spans, impaired learning and difficulty forming relationships in the real world.

''Technology by its engaging nature is creating multiple problems. It encourages rapid, continuous task-switching, which means that we are only processing information at a shallow level and not deeply so we're not able to have complex thoughts but only superficial ones,'' Rosen told The Sunday Age.

''We're also finding certain technologies such as video gaming produce dopamine in the brain at high levels, which our brain interprets as pleasure and that makes us want to do it more. Smartphones are also causing people enough anxiety that they are checking them every 15 minutes or even more, often to help reduce the anxiety of missing out on important information.''

Australia's appetite for technology is voracious. There are 16 million mobile phones in circulation - a 7 per cent increase on last year.

On Tuesday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed there had been a 32 per cent rise in smartphone data downloads between April and June this year, compared with the last three months of 2011. By 2015, it is estimated 80 per cent of the world's population will own a smartphone, tablet or laptop.

Last week, The Sunday Age revealed increasing rates of addiction to online video games could lead to ''internet use disorder'' being classified as a mental illness in the redrafted psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

This cacophony of electronic noise has prompted calls for schools to start teaching students how to switch off. Melbourne-based non-profit group Smiling Mind has created a mindfulness meditation program - delivered, somewhat ironically, via a website and app - which is being piloted in 20 schools across Australia, with the aim of being embedded in the national curriculum by 2020.

Fourteen-year-old Taylah Armitage from pilot school Elwood College hopes the classes, in which students sit with eyes closed as they are taken through a guided meditation, will help her to focus more and become less dependent on her iPhone.

''If I have credit I'm pretty much always on it. When my mum wants to go out I always need Wi-Fi so I can be connected because I need to be able to check my phone for Facebook and texts and Tumblr. Sometimes it feels like I've just been on it for five minutes but then I realise it's actually been an hour or more,'' she says. ''I often find that I go straight home from school and I won't be with my friends so I can talk to people on Facebook or on my phone, which is pretty sad so I have to try and stop that.''

Richard Chambers, a headspace psychologist who helped develop Smiling Mind, says mindfulness improves our ability to concentrate and be present in the moment, which is protective against anxiety and depression, and can improve interpersonal skills and resilience.

''You can actually train this capacity to pay attention to what you're doing, to watch the sunset, to listen to the music, to listen to the conversation or the teacher in class. As people do that the mind becomes calmer, levels of stress decrease, productivity improves and over time it can actually create functional and even structural changes in the brain,'' Chambers said.

Year 9 Elwood student Oscar Swift, 15, is wary of the lure of social media and says he tries to limit his time online. ''If you used all the time that you were on Facebook reading a book, writing or playing a guitar, you could either be like a musician or an awesome artist or whatever, so I think it's really important to be balanced with media otherwise you can become a bit of a vegetable.''

But the potentially addictive nature of electronic information is hard to ignore, with some research suggesting that looking at Google activates the brain more than reading a book.

Oxford University neuroscientist Susan Greenfield has been the most vocal in raising the alarm on the shift from face-to-face contact to screen-based communication - a trend she says poses a bigger threat to humanity than climate change.

She argues that non-verbal cues such as body language and eye contact, which may be responsible for up to 70 per cent of our understanding of human messages, are not available to social media users, and therefore innate traits such as empathy are being diminished.

However, Greenfield's claims, which include linking internet use to increasing rates of autism, have been criticised by many of her peers for being alarmist and not based on robust research.

''Too much of anything is not good for you. So there are certain young people who will be at risk of internet addiction just as there are certain young people who are at risk of alcohol addiction. We can't take small case studies and generalise it to the whole of the population,'' said Jane Burns, chief executive of the Young and Well Co-operative Research Centre, a Melbourne-based, federal government-funded body set up to explore the role of technologies in improving the mental health and wellbeing of 12 to 25-year-olds.

A study of 2000 young people, conducted by the centre and published in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2010, showed one-third spent one to three hours a day online and on social media, and 50 per cent spent less than an hour on their devices.

Burns says the findings busted the myth that most young people were overexposed to electronic media. A blanket claim that technology is bad, she said, does not take into account its benefits, particularly for marginalised groups such as those with a disability or chronic illness, and gay and lesbian youngsters.

''Technologies allow you to be connected, and being connected is very important for mental health and wellbeing. It allows you to share positive stories of change, reduce stigma and embrace diversity,'' she said.

''There is research which shows that those who are engaged in both online and offline communication are more involved in activities, more involved in what's happening on a global scale, more interested in what's happening to the environment, to politics and are actually more active and participating in more meaningful ways.

''The internet is here to stay so we've got to harness its potential, and like all things big it has the potential to do both good and bad. If we can get the good right then the bad becomes significant for a few but insignificant for most.''

Dan Lubman, an expert on addiction and the developing brain, and director of Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre, says that while he believes there is presently insufficient evidence to suggest adolescent brain development is being adversely affected by online behaviour, he wants government investment in research to address this vast knowledge gap.

''I don't think we have a good handle on when is this behaviour risky, or how do we let parents know in terms of when they should be worried? But by the same token we also don't know what are the real strengths or advantages of this way of communicating in terms of how does this build resilience and improve our kids' ability to socialise,'' Lubman said.

He agrees that lessons on how to manage information overload should be taught in schools, and argues that parents, who are increasingly using electronic devices to work outside office hours, do not always set the best example.

''There are lots of social pressures to respond instantaneously, whether you've got your on-leave email tracker on or not, so that work-life balance is a growing issue … We're embedded in a culture where this is normative and we just do things without stepping back and reflecting and asking is this actually good for us or the next generation?''

33 comments

There are two issues here, Social Media and Internet Addiction. One is the boat, one is the ocean.

The bigger thing that is rewiring our brains (not just our childrens, but all of us) is multiple connectivity. When i watch TV I now like to be surfing the web and using my phone. is this a bad thing? Who knows. Is it the future? Yes.

Do you want your child to be left out of the future? Imagine a child whose parents don't let them surf the net, have a phone or download programs and stream them direct to the TV. I remember the kids in my class room who didn't have a phone, or a TV and, let's face it, they didn't turn out so well.

Commenter

Terrarocks

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

October 13, 2012, 11:28PM

Yep, exactly. It is the future. It is up to parents now to teach children the benefits of the internet (eg the vast amount of information at their fingertips) and warn against the dangers of addiction (whether that be alcohol or facebook)

Commenter

Phil S

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

October 14, 2012, 9:30AM

good coment i didnt see it this way

Commenter

skeptic

Location

perth

Date and time

October 15, 2012, 7:56AM

It's not necessarily the future. Some generations might learn to appreciate things like actually getting into a story or a conversation.

Commenter

Jon

Location

reality

Date and time

October 15, 2012, 10:39AM

"I remember the kids in my class room who didn't have a phone, or a TV and, let's face it, they didn't turn out so well."

Once upon a time we were taught about causation in school, and objective vs anecdotal evidence. Has that been replaced with Twitter 101? Statistics prove that a rise in ice cream sales is strongly associated with a rise in crime rates. Actual analysis reveals that both are causally linked to warm weather and not to each other. Am I correct in assuming that the kids who didn't have TV and mobiles were generally from lower income families? Perhaps the problem is their lack of other resources that come with higher socioeconomic status, like connections, good diet, the lack of a need to work while attending school, etc. I am also confused about what other sorts of causation you are asserting. Could you explain, for example, how being able to phone other people while you should be paying attention to a lesson helps one academically? One wonders how Einstein ever accomplished anything without being able to access Facebook!

BTW, how do you define "not turning out well" in the first place? Does that include lacking hundreds of Facebook friends in favour of having a low number of relationships of actual depth?

Commenter

Jon

Location

reality

Date and time

October 15, 2012, 10:56AM

Sounds like people live inside too much and do not get enough sunlight. That is all I can see from the above. Turn it all off, go outside and walk around in the sunlight for a little. Scientific fact this is good for you. An epidemic has started and most of you are already trapped.

Commenter

Liberator

Location

SEQLD

Date and time

October 15, 2012, 2:20PM

Sounds like Wallace and Gromit. *Don't worry lad, its only a bit of harmless brain alteration. I haven't tested it yet but it should be safe*

Perhaps mobiles are the most invasive. Their use seems to also be irrespective of whether its appropriate or not. Some kids use them in class, older ones at work or in the car when they're driving. Inappropriate use, the insatiable desire to *just sneak a look* is pathetically tragic but indicative of the type of addiction this article discusses.

With that in mind there's no way I'm going to get back on two wheels unless its on a track.

If there was a *dangerous* piece of technology its the proverbial *earphones* that are typically connected to those phones. Sadly we've seen a number of teens really tragically killed long before their time. I heard John Faine talk about a young fella who nearly placed himself under the wheels of Johns car, distracted from his environment by those earphones. I've had a very similar experience with a teen doing similar. Police and Ambulance officers warn constantly.

Lucky I'm typing this in the morning sun on my deck. :-)

Commenter

MattG

Date and time

October 14, 2012, 7:27AM

Yep, earphones are dangerous. my partner could have hit one the other day, crossing the road when the crossing lights were red. she was following someone else blindly, who had enough time to get across the road. Beeping the horn at her made no effect. No response at all...scary.

This was near Monash University Blackburn/Wellington road intersection) if anyone is interested.

Commenter

Phil S

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

October 14, 2012, 9:41AM

If it wasn't for the location, Phil S, I'd swear that must have been my wife: she has the horrible habit of just following others off the kerb without checking that they're not suicidal or just slightly more primed for a spring than she is.

To the point: after quite a few years of internet, phone, etc, I've given serious consideration to my internet usage. As mentioned by someone above 'the future' seems to be surfing the net while watching TV. All sounds rather connected and modern but I have found my ability to concentrate - if I reflect on my younger days at school - has appreciably shrunk. 10 minutes of a book and I flick open a web page to have a quick look. So I now need to disconnect and re-build some stamina of concentration.

I recall reading 'The Shallows' a year of so back. Since then (or so it seems to me), there has been a lot of interest in this area. I think it's a rather interesting area and one where we have a right to be cautious.

Commenter

MikeB

Date and time

October 15, 2012, 11:26AM

The phrase is, "Turn on, tune in, drop out," emphasis on the turn off. Parents who allow their kids to have smart phones and large wodges of credit are perpetuating a form of child abuse in my book. Schools have a duty to help kids to learn to focus more deeply by giving them the opportunity to read, gasp, books and not provide them with further platfroms for distraction with iPads in class, iPhones to do projects on or photograph notes from the board. If kids are betrayed by their elders who naively swallow the Life 2.0 hype that is a commercial ideology to flog units of stuff then we have no one to blame but ourselves if they end up shallow, dumb and narcisstic. My kids school is forcing every student to have an iPad next year for no clear reasons other than a marketing edge over other private schools. I'm very close to taking him out and putting him in an institution that is not run by sheeple.